Dear Mr. Liu,
You do not know me. My name is Glória Duarte. I am 81 years old, a widow, and I have lost my sight. I live in Catalão, Goiás, on land that is rightfully mine — the very land from which your company extracts billions every year.
My husband, Jesus, passed away last year at the age of 90. In his final months, he had to urinate into a construction bucket because we could not afford a catheter. He died that way — stripped of the most basic dignity. Meanwhile, your company's lawyers told the court that I live in "extreme comfort."
Mr. Liu, I survive on a monthly pension of R$ 1,600. I cannot afford antibiotics when I need them. Six elderly co-owners died throughout these ten years of litigation — without seeing a single day of justice. Jesus was the last. I may be next.
I know that in your culture there is the teaching that 百善孝为先 — of all the hundred virtues, filial piety is the foremost. I am not invoking this as a legal argument. I am invoking it as a plea from a mother to a son who was raised to understand what honor means.
Do not come to me with lawyers' arguments, Mr. Liu. I have listened to lawyers for ten years. Come to me with respect. Does your company not hold certifications that require it to consider stakeholders and uphold the human rights of the elderly?
What I Ask
1. Recognition: That CMOC acknowledge my condition of extreme vulnerability.
2. Negotiation: A real dialogue — send someone with the power to make immediate decisions.
3. Dignity: That the niobium from my land no longer carries blood in its name.
Time is running out for me, Mr. Liu. Not for the lawsuit. Not for your company. For me.
And so I ask you, Mr. Liu:
WHAT IF IT WERE YOUR MOTHER?
如果是你的母亲呢？
